Episode 042: Redefining Risk with Jenny Just

So you talked about, you know, "I got lucky," right, when you were mentioning what was happening in Chicago.

And I think a lot in sort of the paths that our lives take, the type of decisions that we're making, the intersection between the decisions we're making and luck, and I'm hearing this across your story.

You started trading options at a time when edges were wide.

Mm-hmm.

But you still had to be great at it.

Yep.

Right? You have to not only see, "This is a good solution for us, but this is a good solution for other people."

Mm-hmm.

"We could actually think about this as a solution for other things we could do besides support our own trading," so on and so forth.

So I'd love to just kind of hear your thoughts about, as you're thinking about these inflection points in your career, how do you think about that intersection between the skill of it all and the timing, which is really a luck question?

Mm-hmm.

It was.

So we think about luck a lot, and we think there's obviously a major component of it, particularly in the markets.

But being prepared when your ship comes in to hold on with both hands and really ride it is, is the most important part.

But it's also lucky that if you're preparing for the right thing.

We know a lot, but we don't know everything.

And so when we start to make business decisions, we also know we don't know everything.

And I would say, you know, especially for me personally, I was a single mom, and making decisions, I think it was my fear that drove a lot in the early days.

"What if I don't have income? I thought I was going to have enough, but what if I don't?" I thought, "I don't know how to do this." And I know I came from a group of traders who tend not to be good managers.

So if we have to manage a lot of people, that's a problem.

And we actually happened to meet someone talking about this, th-these issues, and he, and they said, "Well, you know you could use technology," right? Which sounds very silly today.

Yeah.

And I said, "No, I didn't." And so I immediately went down that rabbit hole, 'cause if that is one of my options, you know, tr-truly one of my options in this case, that I can cut off some of my fear and anxiety around how long this one thing will take to build, and this other thing is, you know, sort of purely risky from just a, an income perspective.

If I can cut that all off and go directly so I can test my hypotheses that much sooner, I'm gonna try and do that.

You're kind of the opposite of this, you know, the classic story about Blockbuster, right? Like, here's Blockbuster.